


Of Gods and Guardians

by AndromedaPrime



Category: Transformers - All Media Types, Transformers: Prime
Genre: Deities, M/M, Story within a Story, Transformer Sparklings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-09
Updated: 2020-01-09
Packaged: 2021-02-27 09:47:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,254
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22185100
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AndromedaPrime/pseuds/AndromedaPrime
Summary: "It was decreed among the Gods that it was forbidden to fall in love with the Guardian. There was no need for a distracted Guardian that would favor one God above the others. The decree was broken by one of them.”“So, a God and the Guardian fell in love?”
Relationships: Megatron/Optimus Prime
Comments: 11
Kudos: 131
Collections: MegOP Week 2020





	Of Gods and Guardians

**Author's Note:**

> This is my entry for the deity/fairy tale AU day of MegOP Week! It's been such a blast seeing all the new stuff being created. It's like Christmas 2.0!
> 
> Shout-out to auri_mynonys for putting up with my prevaricating and yelling at her about this fic!

Optimus felt her presence nearby, her electromagnetic field brimming with giggles and excited energy, before her helm peeped out from somewhere in the vicinity of his knee. Her bright optics looked at him from just over the edge of the seat, and he saw the movement of a wing flicking.

He read to the end of the sentence he was on and then looked up, smiling serenely at the femme and the look of mischief in her optics. “Where is your sire?”

His daughter sprung to her full height, all eight stellar cycles of her, and she clambered onto the seat and lay partway on his lap. She gazed up at him. “He’s in the study reading a datapad.”

“What is he reading?”

“Something about wars. I was asking him to tell me stories or play with me, but then he sat me down and started going over old battle plans with me, from when you and him were Prime and Protector. I got bored.” She blinked her optics at him, innocently.

Optimus laughed. “His intention may have been to bore you into recharge.” He guided her to sit back up. “It is late, and you should be in berth by now.” He emphasized his point by looking out the window, where the sun was setting behind the mountains and he could see faint pinpricks of light shining as the stars emerged.

Andromeda pouted. “But I’m not tired.”

“You will be very soon, as will your sire and I. Come,” he got off of the seat and motioned for the femme to follow him. “Let’s get you ready for recharge.”

The youngling sighed and sulked a little bit as she walked after him, following him into her berthroom. 

Her berth was large and had nests of pillows and blankets, with strings of little lights everywhere. At the head of her berth was a small, very soft plush in the shape of a cybercat that she cuddled with each night. 

Just like when she was much younger, Optimus leaned down and hefted her into her berth, tucking the many sheets around her until she was swamped in them. Just as she liked it, and just as he remembered liking it in his own youth. He leaned over and kissed her helm crest. “Get some recharge, little one.”

Then he turned around and made his way to the door.

“Carrier?”

Optimus stopped, smiled to himself, and then turned around to look at his daughter, whose optics were bright and peering out from the folds of her blanket nest. She moved her helm a little bit more so her mouth wasn’t covered by sheets, and she could speak. “Can you tell me a story?” she asked meekly.

He nodded, and she immediately sat up in excitement. Making his way over to her overcrowded shelf, he picked out the usual datapad and then sat next to the youngling, his legs off the side of the berth. “Which one would you like to hear?”

His daughter made a noise of uncertainty. “You’ve read me all the stories on that one. Can we read one from one of your datapads?”

He was about to tell her that they could choose from another one of her datapads, but the hopeful look in her optics was more than enough to persuade him. Laughing softly, he kissed her helm. “I will be right back.”

He headed across the domicile to the joint study/library and smiled at Megatron when his sparkmate looked up and removed the reading magnifiers from his optics. “She wants to hear another, new story.”

“Are her datapads too juvenile for her now?” Megatron asked jokingly.

“Very soon even your philosophical texts will be too small-minded for her,” Optimus said lightly as he scoured the shelves for the datapad he was looking for in particular. “Do you happen to know where the datapad with the old myths of Cybertron is?”

“That old one? Why would you read her _those_?”

“If you’d been paying attention the past few nights, you would have noticed she’s on quite the mythological kick.”

“It’s rather difficult to pay attention to the words when the bot speaking them manages to _distract_ me by being the most beautiful creation in the universe.”

Optimus found the datapad and then went and kissed Megatron’s lipplates, smiling against them. “I found it, without your help. Thank you.” He pulled away and then laughed as Megatron tried to follow, but wound up being blocked by a very sturdy desk. The other mech grumbled.

He made his way back to the berthroom and sat back down, allowing his daughter to snuggle up next to him, bright optics peering down at the datapad. It was heavy and very old to Optimus, but it was a brand new world of possibilities and excitement to her. Her optics flitted from word to word, reading the title of each chapter. The corners and bottom edges of her optics moved slightly as she parsed them all, thinking hard. Then, she looked up at him. “Which one’s your favorite? I wanna hear that one.”

“Oh he has many, many favorites,” came another voice from the doorway.

Optimus looked up and smiled at his sparkmate, and Andromeda excitedly waved a servo. “Hi sire!”

Megatron crossed the distance to the berth and splayed himself on it, to the other side of their daughter. He kissed the closest of her helm fins. “Asking your carrier what his favorite story is is like asking him to choose whom he loves more - you, or myself”

“The answer is her.”

Megatron gave him such a mock-offended look that Optimus had to laugh. He leaned over the kissed Megatron again to wipe that look off of his face. Between them, Andromeda made a noise of disgust.

“You are a very close second, my love,” Optimus said, just to see the scoffing look on Megatron’s face. He sighed and looked down at the datapad. “I will tell you tonight about a god, and his guardian that he fell in love with.”

Megatron’s electromagnetic field brushed him, full of surprise.

“In the time before history was written,” Optimus began reading, smiling when his daughter pressed close to him, her bright optics gazing at him, “the Thirteen Gods of Old ruled over Cybertron from their place, in the Realm of the Gods. Created by Primus himself, they were his only creations for quite a long time. Until, that is, Primus decided to create the Guardian. The Guardian, though quite a strong and powerful being, was of more limited power than the Gods. The Guardian was created to serve the Gods as their line of defense. So, it was decreed among the Gods that it was forbidden to fall in love with the Guardian. There was no need for a distracted Guardian that would favor one God above the others. But, the decree was broken by one of them.”

He could feel the intense gazes of his sparkmate and youngling on him. Resetting his vocalizer, he continued: “Each of the Gods had a responsibility. The God in question, was the god of fertility.” 

Andromeda stared at him, and then she blinked her optics. “Fertility? That’s… that’s being able to have sparklings, right?”

“Among other things, yes.” He smiled and looked back down at the datapad. “He was the god that the Cybertronians prayed to for flowing springs of energon, for a fertile harvesting season, and that many bots petitioned to bless them with a sparkling of their own. And, in dire times, for the carrier to survive a difficult emergence.”

“Did the Guardian have a responsibility, like the God?”

This time, Megatron spoke. “The Guardian didn’t have such specific responsibilities. The Guardian were created solely for the protection of the Gods, with the Primus-given strength to go with it. By a stretch, the Guardian could be considered a minor deity of war.”

“So, the God of Fertility and the Guardian fell in love?”

“Yes. The Guardian often brought small gifts for the God of Fertility, such as crystalline flowers, and other trinkets from the cities that the Cybertronians - Primus’s next creation for the Gods to rule - established. Gods were not permitted to descend into the cities, so the God loved listening to the stories that the Guardian regaled him with.”

One of Andromeda’s helm fins twitched and a look of disbelief came over her face. “How come the Gods couldn’t go into the city? They’re Gods.”

Optimus sighed and stroked the top of his daughter’s helm. “There was even a hierarchy among the Gods. The younger that a God was, the more strict the rules placed up on them were. In this instance, this God of the story had the misfortune of being the youngest of them all. The older gods could get away with breaking their own rule,” Optimus gave a smile and shook his helm. “But the fertility god was put away, under lock and key, with the Guardian to protect him.”

Andromeda giggled.

“The secret affair between the God of Fertility and the Guardian lasted for some time. Then, one cycle, the other gods found out.”

Andromeda’s vents hitched and her optics widened. “How?”

“They were caught in an act of passion.” Optimus would not elaborate further. She could figure out what that meant when she got older. 

In his peripheral vision, he could see a small smile and a faraway look cross Megatron’s face.

“They were caught by the God of Pleasure, and brought before the rest of the pantheon. They didn’t anticipate such a scandalous reveal. A surprise, to be sure,” he chuckled. “They were reluctant to punish a fellow God, so the Guardian was the recipient of their anger.” He looked up at Megatron. “Can you help me elaborate? What did they do to the Guardian.”

Andromeda turned her attention to her sire as Megatron scoffed, and then nodded. “The God of All Other Gods took the Guardian’s Primus-given strength, making him no more stronger than the average Cybertronian. They divested him of his weapons. Then, for his daring to court one of their own, they cast their previously-renown Guardian from the Realm of the Gods and into a large pit, darker than the night sky, brimming with disgusting monsters the size of large buildings, and bigger.”

Their daughter’s optics brightened as she listened intently. Megatron continued. “The Guardian was so determined to reunite with his beloved God that he proceeded to do what the Gods thought would be impossible for him, in his weakened state. Through an intervention, he still bore his weapons, his blades so sharp that they would never go dull, and his cannon of fearsome firepower.”

“How many monsters were there?”

Megatron dryly replied “Too many to count” at the same time Optimus answered, “Twelve.” Optimus looked up and laughed gently. “Have you forgotten how to count, Megatron?”

Andromeda cut in before her sire could respond. “The Guardian killed the monsters, right?”

“That he did, my sweetspark,” Megatron said, stroking one sharp digit along one of her helm fins. “The first one he killed rather easily, or so the stories go. A simple flick of his blade to the processor, cleaving it in half and striking the center where all its functions emanated from. The second was just as easy - lopping the head off and then halving it just to be sure.”

“Did the Guardian start getting tired, from all the fighting?”

“Yes, he did. Somewhere around the fifth monster. The more he went on, the larger and more gruesome the creatures became.”

Andromeda leaned against her sire’s frame, her wings flicking happily when Megatron kissed one of her helm fins and murmured an affectionate word in old Cybertronian to her. Optimus watched them both as Megatron continued, “But still he persevered. He swore that he would make it back to the Realm of the Gods, one way or another. He refused to let these monsters strike him down, so he continued until he reached the last creature. How he’d never seen anything quite like it.”

“What did it look like? Do you know?”

“It was _grotesque_. The limbs were numerous, as were the eyes. On its belly was its mouth, a horrifying circular formation of pointed dentae and acidic slime that waited to dissolve anyone who came close to it. The Guardian hacked and slashed at its limbs, but each limb regenerated within moments of the hacking. And then, the Guardian had an idea.”

“Did he use the cannon?”

Megatron blinked down at his daughter, then up at Optimus, who laughed. “Yes. He used the cannon to kill the twelfth monster. The Guardian aimed at its mouth, and the firepower internally burned away the acidic slime, causing the monster to disintegrate into itself.”

“That’s gross but that’s so cool,” Andromeda said, a wide smile on her face.

“Oh, the Guardian thought so as well,” Megatron laughed. “The Guardian, still baring his blood-stained battle-sword, traipsed across harsh terrain and towards the Realm of the Gods, past the barrier they’d set up to prevent non-deities from entering at will. He expected more punishment, more pushback from these insolent deities, but when he arrived… what did he find, Optimus?”

Optimus sighed and smoothed the sheets around his daughter, knowing it was a futile endeavor. “The Realm was empty. There were no Gods, save for one.”

“The Fertility God?” Andromeda asked.

“The Guardian found his beloved in the depths of the Realm, locked away and trying to free himself. The other gods had stripped him of his power as well, after he had attempted to go after the Guardian. In the fleeting moment before his power had been stripped, the God of Fertility had given his beloved back the weapons he so cherished and relied upon.”

Megatron’s red optics dimmed, and Optimus reached over and took one of his sparkmate’s servos in his. 

“The other gods had taken on the forms of the monsters that the Guardian had defeated,” Optimus said. “They didn’t anticipate that the God of Fertility would not only give the Guardian back his weapons, but that he would protect them with an incantation to prevent the other gods from seizing them again. And so, the God of Fertility and the Guardian left the Realm of the Gods, never to return.”

Andromeda drew her legs up to her chassis and stared at her carrier, her optics begging for more.

“Unfortunately, history lost track of them. Knowledge of their whereabouts tapers off after they were seen entering a city from the direction of the Realm, whereupon they left after a solar cycle.” Optimus looked back down at the datapad, scrolling down a little further. “The mythology does go on to say that we can now find them in the stars, for there are constellations named ‘The God’ and ‘The Guardian’.”

His daughter made a face of distaste at the same time Megatron muttered, “How imaginative.”

“So… how come they didn’t have names? The Guardian and the God of Fertility.”

“Over a long time, details can be lost in stories as old as these,” Optimus said, sighing and holding the little femme close. “And sadly, sometimes those details can be names.”

“Did the other gods have names?”

“They did. But they’ve been lost to the ages as well. The best we have been able to decode is their responsibility lists. Record-keeping and care for the frail. Metallurgy and flames. There was the god of pleasure, of course. The god of all the other gods, their leader. Those are just a few.”

Andromeda nodded, and then she drew a pensive look on her face. Optimus stroked her helm and then looked at his sparkmate, who looked at him in kind, when she asked. “Do you think the gods ever existed?”

“Hmm. What do you think?”

“Probably not. I mean, we don’t have their names. And magic isn’t real, like how the fertility god gave the Guardian his sword back.”

Optimus noticed the small twitch of Megatron’s optic. “The gods may, or may not, have existed. But it is not the truth of their existence that I feel is the takeaway from the stories that have been handed down about them. Rather, it is the lessons we may learn. And in this one,” he looked back down at the datapad, “we learn about just how powerful love can really be, overcoming gods and monsters.”

The youngling pursed the line of her lipplates.

“You may not appreciate it now, little one,” Megatron said as he wrapped an arm around the femme, “but when you get older, you may come to understand.”

.-.-.

“Should we ever tell her?”

Optimus leaned against his sparkmate and sighed, looking up at the constellations overhelm. He lifted a digit and traced the one of The Guardian in the air. Next to it, was The God. “I’m conflicted. What would she gain if we told her the truth?”

“She would gain exactly that,” Megatron countered firmly, stroking his digits against Optimus’s hip where he had loosely wrapped an arm around his back and settled his servo “The truth.”

“Our genetics are no different than the average Cybertronian now. There’s no reason, at least in the medical sense, that it should be revealed. Not if examinations will show her to be a perfectly normal Cybertronian.”

“But she may still develop abilities.”

“And she may not,” Optimus said. He sat up straight and closed his optics. “She doesn’t need to know the truth of what we once were.”

“It may explain to her how I’ve survived so many fights. And how you quite literally willed her into existence.”

The former Prime laughed quietly, then reopened his optics. “That wasn’t possible without your assistance, my love.”

“Oh, yes, our _favorite_ activity behind closed doors,” Megatron purred.

Optimus remembered how easily he used to become flustered when his sparkmate, his Guardian, would whisper such innuendo in his audio receptors during those faraway nights. Now, much older, he sighed and took one of his sparkmate’s servos into his. 

“Were I in her place, I’d loathe if my creators didn’t tell me the truth of what I might be,” Megatron intoned after a few kliks of silence. “I’d accuse them of lying by omission.”

That made Optimus’s spark clench. He nodded, relenting. “When she is older.” He looked at Megatron. “She’s still so young. Let her be a youngling and be carefree. She doesn’t need the weight of the truth on her shoulders.”

Megatron smiled sadly and then stroked the back of Optimus’s servo with one of his digits. “Do you remember what you told me, that the other gods told you when you attempted to follow after me?”

“Hmph. Yes. That I’d never find happiness with you, nor what my spark most wanted… which was a sparkling of my own.”

“Despite the stories, I still believe you have some godly power left in you, my beloved one,” Megatron smirked. “How else would Ratchet and Ironhide, and various other couples, have borne sparklings of their own so quickly after you bore her?”

Optimus pointedly looked away. “I am not going to argue with you about that. I can only vouch for our own child’s creation.”

At that moment, the doors leading to the back landing opened. Andromeda stood there, clutching her cybercat plush and blinking her optics. “Carrier, sire, I can’t sleep.” She pouted at them. “Can I have some more stories?”

Looking between each other, Megatron and Optimus chuckled and then headed inside with the youngling.


End file.
